Light emitting diodes, LEDs, are employed in a wide range of lighting applications. As LEDs have the advantage of providing a bright light, being reasonably inexpensive and drawing very little power, it is becoming increasingly attractive to use LEDs as an alternative to traditional incandescent lighting. Furthermore, LEDs have a long operational lifetime. As an example, LED lamps may last 100 000 hours which is up to 20 times the operational life of an incandescent lamp.
However, even though LEDs have a long operational life, individual devices may fail and require early replacement or LED lamps may be replaced for reasons such as upgrading or alternating between different LED lamps. Therefore, serviceable and integrated LED modules with corresponding sockets for general lighting applications are introduced to the market, thereby enabling easy upgrades and replaceability of LED modules. Additionally, a modular system for LED devices provides the possibility to use LED modules from different suppliers.
Further, LED modules may be replaced and upgraded at the end of their operational life, or earlier, if e.g. a different color temperature is desired, without having to remove the reflector or open the ceiling.
One kind of LED module is the driver integrated LED module. The LED driver converts 120V (or other voltage) 60 Hz AC power to the low-voltage DC power required by the LEDs and protects them from line-voltage fluctuations.
The driver integrated LED modules are typically region specific, according to differences in legislation and the driver is designed specifically for the mains supply in a region. Typically 3 regions are defined: North America, Europe/APR and Japan, all having different mains supplies.
There is a risk involved by having different LED modules designed for different regions. If a region specific LED module is inserted in a holder in another region which has a different mains supply than the LED module is designed for, there is a risk of connecting a module to the wrong mains. This could happen if a module intended for Europe ends up in the US. In the least bad case the LED module just does not work, but in a worse case the LED module will be damaged. To mediate this risk, most prior art lighting products use a keying in the lamp holder and lamp base that differentiates between the different regions, resulting in a different lamp holder for North America, Europe/APR and for Japan. Besides this three-fold lamp holder development, the luminary maker also has to keep stock of lamp holders for each region it sells its products in.
Thus, there is still a need for a luminaire having a socket which can be used for two or more regions.